Twitter confirms acquisition of TV analytics firm Bluefin Labs

Twitter will not sell Bluefin's products beyond current contracts with customers

By John Ribeiro | 06 February 13

Twitter has confirmed that it acquired Bluefin Labs, a vendor of data that uses commentary on social networks to measure the effectiveness of commercials and programs on TV.

"We believe that Bluefin's data science capabilities and social TV expertise will help us create innovative new ad products and consumer experiences in the exciting intersection of Twitter and TV," Twitter's Chief Operating Officer Ali Rowghani wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

Bluefin, described as a social TV analytics company, provides data to brand advertisers, agencies, and TV networks.

Seeing an opportunity in social TV, Twitter tied with Nielsen in December in an exclusive, multi-year agreement to create the "Nielsen Twitter TV Rating," an industry-standard metric that is based on Twitter data. Nielsen and NM Incite, a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey & Co., bought a social TV measurement firm called SocialGuide in November, which provided the audience engagement analytics platform for the new metric.

"We plan to collaborate closely with Nielsen and SocialGuide on product development and research to help brands, agencies, and networks fully understand the combined value of Twitter and TV," Rowghani said. Twitter intends to honor existing Bluefin customer contracts, but will not continue to sell Bluefin's product suite beyond the existing contracts.

While Bluefin products have included data from multiple social media services, Twitter is the platform where about 95 percent of public real-time engagement with TV happens, Bluefin executives Michael Fleischman, Deb Roy and J.P. Maheu wrote in a blog post. "So we couldn't be more excited to join Twitter."

Twitter did not disclose the financial details of the deal. The Bluefin core team at current headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts will remain there.